We are requesting for funds to purchase an oligonucleotide synthesizer, a peptide synthesizer with a dedicated HPLC system and an automated DNA sequencing system. The instruments will be housed at The School of Veterinary Medicine and supervised by a committee of major users from six different Department of The School of Veterinary Medicine, The School of Medicine and The School of Arts and Sciences all located within a one to two block area of the campus. The major users consist of 21 different groups (146 research personnel) with over 38 federal and non-federal grants who will use these instruments for 80% of the time. The research interests of the major user group are focused on the basic as well as the applied aspects of cell and molecular biology, including transgenic research, development aspects of histone and immunoglobin gene expression, gene expression during embryogenesis and cell differentiation, cell-cell interaction, membrane biogenesis, mitochondrial and nuclear gene interaction, herpesviral gene expression and development of vaccines, structure and function of ion-channels, signal transduction in neural cells, diseases of the neuromuscular and hemetopoetic systems, and characterization of genetic disorders of inherited metabolic diseases and development of gene therapy in various animal models. All of these projects involve extensive use of DNA sequencing and synthetic peptide and oligonucleotide probes.